Here comes the crucial twist. In all of the examples so far, we assumed that everyone had instant knowledge of what everyone else was wearing. People knew exactly what the mainstream trend was. But in reality, there are always delays. It takes time for a signal to propagate across a brain; likewise it takes time for hipsters to read Complex or Pitchfork or whatever in order to figure out how to be contrarian.
The mathematician who proved why hipsters all look alike
What brain neurons tell us about the ‘hipster effect’ when all contrarians end up looking the same.
This post has been reshared 1 times on Google+
View this post on Google+
Hmm. Given that there is a vertical scale, I wonder what would happen if the hipsters' behavior was determined only by the N closest individuals on that scale.
…Or, by the N closest individuals in this turn, combined with the individuals between N and 1.5N units away one turn ago, and between 1.5N and 1.75N two turns ago, etc.